Experts say it's time for HR to rethink how workplace policy handles harassment from outside the organization
Five years ago, a major Canadian study found harassment and violence were common issues in the workplace.
Five years later, the same is unfortunately true, according to researchers — but the type of violence has changed.
Western University's Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women & Children (CREVAWC) and the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) conducted the study based on a survey of 5,605 permanent, temporary, and seasonal workers between September and December 2025 about their experiences of harassment and violence at work over the previous two years.
They found that nearly seven in 10 respondents experienced at least one form of harassment or violence at work in the past two years.
Of that, 62% involved non-sexual harassment and violence, such as intimidation, sabotage, rumours, and physical assault, while 41.4 per cent involved sexual harassment, such as unwanted sexual comments, touching, and assault.
Additionally, when it came to online harassment, 19 per cent shared they experienced threatening messages and aggressive online comments.
The first study, published in 2022, found that 71.4 per cent of respondents experienced at least one form of harassment or violence at work.
Where is the harassment coming from?
According to the report, harassment and violence carried out by third parties, such as customers, patients, and students, rose significantly since 2022, going from 30.7% to 36.2%. Sexual harassment and violence from third parties also rose, going from 33.7% to 41.1 per cent.
For Adriana Berlingieri, a professor at Western University's CREVAWC and a researcher on both studies, this opens up a lot of questions: “What do we do about violence coming from outside the workplace, from patients, from customers, from students?"
Many survey respondents said their job involves regular interaction with the public. Harassment and violence were highly prevalent among respondents in sectors such as health care, social assistance, education and public administration
The report suggests the decline in harassment and violence from coworkers may be due to the strengthening of health and safety legislation, changes to workplace policies, and an increase in training. Workplace harassment perpetrated by colleagues of all levels, including managers and supervisors, has decreased.
In 2022, 39 per cent of respondents shared they had experienced violence and harassment from colleagues; in 2026, that number dropped to 33 per cent.
The cost to employers
Beyond the numbers, Berlingieri says the harassment and violence documented in the report come with a real cost for employers.
The biggest impact on workers is a a loss of trust in superiors (68.2% for harassment and violence and 52.0% for sexual harassment and violence), followed by loss of trust in team/unit/department (62.2% for harassment and violence and 47.3% for sexual harassment and violence).
These numbers represent more than lost hours, she says.
"If we take all the forms of harassment... including gender-based harassment and violence, those costs really, if you think about it for an organization, are quite high."
Berlingieri says this raises further questions about how it affects productivity.
“What does that do to creativity? What does that do to innovation?"
There is a gap in research on the actual financial toll of workplace harassment and violence, and it's one her team is trying to close, she adds.
There are many reasons why people may choose not to report their experiences of sexual harassment and violence at work, according to the report. The most common reason are that they did not think it was serious enough (44.2%), they did not believe that reporting would make a difference (39.4%), and they were afraid of negative consequences associated with reporting (32.6%).
As for a response to their complaints, respondents indicated that they were most dissatisfied with the responses they received from human resources (73%) and supervisors or managers (53%) compared to H&S reps (48%) and union reps (44%).
Rethinking the role of HR
These challenges raise a question: what can be done to prevent it? Siobhán Vipond, vice-president of the CLC, says addressing harassment and violence in the workplace, especially from third parties, starts with reinterpreting the role of HR when it comes to these issues.
"Sometimes those relationships fall outside of a very narrow interpretation of the role of HR in workplaces," she says.
"As workplaces have changed, the people you're dealing with often don't have the same employer as you. With customers, they're not even technically at work. So, what do we do with our HR policies to make sure we're protecting workers?"
One example of this policy shift is a recent campaign among call centre workers, who faced high rates of abuse from callers, which led to a policy allowing employees to end the call if a customer became abusive, says Vipond.
"There has to be an expectation of each other of how we show up.”
That also starts with moving past zero-tolerance policies, she says: "We need to get past things like 'The customer is always right.' We have to have an expectation of how we want people to behave in these places.”
But the real test is making sure a policy is useful and not just something that exists on paper, says Vipond.
"Are our policies accessible? Are they actually possible to use?"
She points out how signage has begun appearing in some hospitals warning that mistreatment of staff won't be tolerated, a visible sign of that shift. "It's setting the right tone," she says. "But is it everything? Absolutely not."
"The test of success is actually: ‘Is it a safe workplace? Is that how your workers would describe the workplace?’" Vipond says.
